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It doesn't rank among Oshima's best works, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. For a Japanese film made in the late Seventies, it's surprisingly Film Noir. The characterization - the femme fatale and jealous lover plotting to kill the unsuspecting husband - the cinematography - the wonderfully dark, bleak world Seki and Toyoji inhabit - In the Realm of Passion comes from the pages of hard boiled pulp fiction, relocated to Nineteenth century Japan.
But it's also in the tradition of Japanese ghost stories - hence the familiar archetypes of the vengeful spirit and the well; a symbol of repressed fear. The way the action is framed by narration gives a slightly unreal, allegorical feel to the film; a welcome respite from the relentless realism of modern cinema.
愛の亡霊
Dir. Nagisa Oshima, 1978
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